Dismantling Our Environmental Rights: Ontario Wants to Silence Its Own Watchdogs

Ontario’s environmental protections are being dismantled piece by piece. Now, the government is setting its sights on one of the most important tools the public has to hold it accountable: the Environmental Bill of Rights.

On October 27, 2026, the Ontario government proposed sweeping amendments to the Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993, and the Environmental Protection Act. Presented as a way to streamline consultation, reduce duplication and provide certainty for businesses, the proposal would strip away fundamental mechanisms that allow Ontarians to question government decisions, demand investigations into environmental violations and challenge approvals that threaten the natural world.

This is not simply administrative housekeeping. It is a profound rollback of environmental accountability.

When the government weakens the public’s right to defend the environment, it is not eliminating red tape. It is removing safeguards against harm.

The Environmental Bill of Rights was established to recognize a simple but essential principle: Ontarians have a right to participate in decisions that affect their environment and a right to hold their government accountable for protecting it.

For decades, the legislation has provided meaningful tools for public participation and environmental oversight. It allows members of the public to request reviews of existing environmental laws and policies, seek investigations into alleged violations, and pursue legal action for harm to public resources under specific circumstances. It also requires prescribed ministries to develop and consider Statements of Environmental Values when making decisions that affect the environment.

These are not bureaucratic inconveniences. They are safeguards designed to ensure that environmental protection is not left entirely to the discretion of the government or the interests of those seeking approval for development.

Yet the government now proposes to eliminate these protections.

Under the proposed amendments, Ontarians would lose their statutory right to submit Applications for Review and Applications for Investigation under the Environmental Bill of Rights. The requirement for ministries to develop and consider Statements of Environmental Values would be repealed. The legal provisions allowing members of the public to bring civil actions for harm to public resources would also be removed.

The government further proposes to eliminate third-party leave-to-appeal mechanisms under the Environmental Bill of Rights and third-party appeal rights relating to renewable energy approvals under the Environmental Protection Act.

Taken together, these changes would leave the public with fewer formal avenues to question environmental decisions, seek accountability for alleged violations and challenge certain approvals.

The government suggests that people can simply contact ministries directly with their concerns. But contacting a government office is not the same as having a legislated right to request an investigation or compel a formal review through an established process. A right that depends on administrative discretion is not an equivalent substitute for a right protected by law.

Transparency without accountability is an empty promise

The government says public participation opportunities will remain available. But participation means little if the mechanisms that turn public concern into meaningful scrutiny are stripped away.

The proposed changes would also allow certain government proposals for policies, Acts and regulations to be published on the Ontario Regulatory Registry instead of the Environmental Registry of Ontario when posting on the former is otherwise required. The government says this will reduce duplication.

But the Environmental Registry is more than a place to post notices. It is a central public resource for people who want to understand what the government is proposing, how decisions may affect their communities and the natural environment, and how they can respond.

Splitting environmental consultations across different systems risks making it harder for people to follow decisions that affect their lives. At a time when Ontario is moving quickly to weaken environmental safeguards, transparency should be strengthened, not made more complicated.

The deeper problem is the assumption running through this proposal: that environmental scrutiny is an obstacle to overcome rather than an essential part of responsible government.

Public participation can take time. Independent scrutiny can expose mistakes. Appeals can force decision-makers to reconsider harmful choices. These are not failures of the system. They are precisely why the system exists.

The public’s watchdog is being weakened when we need it most

Earthroots has repeatedly raised the alarm about the erosion of Ontario’s environmental laws. From the weakening of environmental assessment to the dismantling of species-at-risk protections, we have watched the government narrow the space for public scrutiny while expanding its own discretion.

The proposed amendments to the Environmental Bill of Rights are part of this broader pattern.

Environmental assessment is being weakened. Species protections are being rolled back. Opportunities to challenge decisions are being restricted. Now, the government proposes to remove additional legal tools that allow Ontarians to question whether environmental laws are being followed and whether public resources are being adequately protected.

Each change may be presented as a technical adjustment or a measure to accelerate development. But the cumulative effect is unmistakable: fewer checks on government power, fewer opportunities for meaningful accountability and greater risks for the natural systems on which we all depend.

Ontario’s forests, rivers, wetlands and wildlife cannot speak for themselves in a government decision-making process. The public must be able to speak for them. Conservation organizations, community groups, scientists, Indigenous communities and concerned citizens all have a role to play in identifying environmental harm and demanding action.

What happens when the laws designed to protect nature are weakened, and the tools to challenge those decisions are weakened alongside them? Who is left to hold the government accountable?

Whose certainty matters?

The government emphasizes that these amendments will provide greater certainty for businesses and project proponents, potentially saving time and money.

But certainty for whom?

What about communities that depend on clean water? What about people who discover that environmental laws may have been violated? What about future generations who will inherit the consequences of decisions made today? What about the public resources that belong to all of us?

The government’s proposal places considerable weight on reducing uncertainty for those seeking approvals, while treating the public’s ability to scrutinize decisions as something that can be streamlined away.

Environmental protections exist because the costs of environmental damage are often borne by the public, not necessarily by those who cause it. Contaminated water, degraded habitat, declining biodiversity and damaged ecosystems can leave communities with consequences that persist long after a project is complete.

Public oversight is one way to identify risks before damage occurs and to pursue accountability when laws may have been broken. Removing that oversight does not eliminate environmental risks. It can simply make those risks harder to expose and address.

A government genuinely committed to responsible development would recognize that strong environmental laws, transparent decision-making and meaningful public participation are essential to lasting economic and social well-being.

Ontario must not abandon its environmental responsibilities

The Environmental Bill of Rights was a recognition that environmental protection is a public responsibility and that people must have a meaningful role in decisions affecting their environment.

That principle matters now more than ever.

As biodiversity declines, climate impacts intensify and pressure on natural landscapes grows, Ontario should be strengthening the public’s ability to identify environmental threats and demand responsible action. Instead, this proposal would eliminate important legal mechanisms and ask the public to trust that less formal avenues of communication will be sufficient.

Trust must be earned through transparency, enforceable obligations and accountability. It cannot be demanded while the public’s legal protections are being stripped away.

Earthroots rejects the premise that environmental accountability is an impediment to progress. Protecting the natural world is not a competing interest to be sacrificed for the sake of speed. It is a fundamental responsibility of government, and one that cannot be fulfilled without public scrutiny.

Ontario’s environmental laws belong to the people of Ontario. They must not be reduced to obstacles standing between powerful interests and their objectives.

We call on the Ontario government to withdraw the proposed amendments that would eliminate these essential environmental rights. The government must protect the public’s ability to request environmental reviews and investigations, preserve meaningful avenues for challenging harmful decisions, maintain the obligation for ministries to consider their environmental commitments, and retain legal tools to seek accountability for harm to public resources.

The right to participate in environmental decisions must mean more than the right to submit a comment that can be ignored. It must include meaningful mechanisms for scrutiny, review and accountability.

Once these rights are removed, restoring them may be difficult. Once environmental damage occurs, it may be impossible to reverse.

Ontario cannot afford to weaken the public’s ability to protect the natural world any further.

Nature has no seat at the table. The public must not be silenced when it speaks for nature.

The public comment period for Environmental Registry of Ontario proposal 026-1109 is open until November 26, 2026. Read the proposal and submit your comments through the Environmental Registry of Ontario⁠.